Everyone empty your pockets?
Stopping only those who fit a terrorist `profile' might make the skies safer
Search me. In the United States, where civil liberties and personal privacy are deeply ingrained and constitutionally enshrined, the flying public has long traded security for convenience, preferring that airport checks be passively and democratically applied. But 9/11 reopened the question of how many of their civil liberties travelers are willing to give up in return for heightened security.
More aggressive measures tolerated in other countries would be invasive and controversial here--none more so than the politically sensitive issue of profiling. Despite all of the hijackers' being Middle Eastern Arabs, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has said he believes a young Muslim male and a 70-year-old white American woman should be given equal attention at the security gate. Federal guidelines forbid screeners to consider race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, clothing, facial hair, language, accent, and other markers. Targeting someone for extra attention solely because of his appearance is a likely violation of federal civil rights law. In the absence of other incriminating evidence such as a threat or a weapon, body and baggage searches must be entirely random.
The legal hurdles don't necessarily rule out adapting the European model here. Rand Corp. security expert Brian Jenkins says airline databases should focus on three basic pieces of information: Is the passenger a terrorism suspect or wanted for a major crime? Is he in the country legally? If so, has his visa expired? "That doesn't shred the Constitution," he argues.
But many believe the antiprofiling rules are folly. "We're using a peacetime, constitutionally pristine, politically correct check so as not to offend people," says David Stempler, who heads the Air Travelers Association. "We are at war and we don't have that luxury." Daniel Pipes, head of the Middle East Forum, likens the nondiscrimination policy to forcing police who are hunting a tall male criminal to give equal attention to short women. "Government regulations demand a dumbness and a pretense not to know what everyone else knows," he says. "Hijackers come overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, from the ranks of militant Islam."
The Jackal. Still, profiling isn't a magic solution, either. "Terrorists identify the profile and do things to obviate it," says Jenkins. Case in point Palestinian groups in the 1970s recruited Western operatives like Venezuelan Ilich Ramirez Sanchez--better known as Carlos the Jackal--after the Israelis began eliminating their ethnic Middle Eastern commanders.
Some of the September 11 hijackers actually fit the profile--known al Qaeda members seized one of the four planes--and still beat the system. Some three weeks before the hijackings, the names of two al Qaeda members known to have entered the United States were placed on federal watch lists, and the FBI began a nationwide hunt. But the names, and that of a third al Qaeda suspect, weren't given to the airlines. The three sailed undetected through a routine CAPPS check--the government-approved Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System operated domestically by the airlines--then hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 out of Washington's Dulles International Airport and flew it into the Pentagon.
CAPPS analyzes travel-transaction information for suspicious patterns like fliers buying one-way tickets and paying cash. Before the attack, the database carried only travel information, but it now reportedly contains several hundred names of known terrorists and associates or suspicious individuals. Federal authorities want to expand domestic computer screening to include information such as criminal, financial, demographic, travel, and other personal history. But that would require privacy laws to be amended, and civil libertarians--already suspicious that the "trusted traveler" cards now being tested will lead to a national identity card--are voicing concerns.
No matter how tough the defenses, the system will only be as good as its weakest link--a fact illustrated by purported shoe bomber Reid. In his case, the screening system at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris worked perfectly. Reid was twice identified as a likely threat--but was allowed onto the aircraft anyway by airline personnel.
X-ray vision
Eyes Only
Late last week, the security follies continued with new concerns over embarrassing personal searches.
REVEALING First, after thousands of complaints that male screeners were groping female passengers and flight attendants, federal officials ordered same-sex pat-downs. Now the feds worry that new low-emission X-ray machines being tested on volunteers may reveal more than suspicious objects. The machines, which can peer through clothing and clearly reveal the passengers' private parts, "raise tremendous privacy issues," says FAA chief Jane Garvey.
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